It was because she was desperate to have him inside of her. Only him.
She parted her lips for him, expecting him to conquer, expecting him to invade. Instead, he was gentle, his tongue sliding slowly against hers, the slick glide sending a sharp pang of need through her. So acute it was almost painful.
She forked her fingers through his hair, deepening the kiss, pressing her body as firmly against his as she could. She knew that if any of his staff members walked out now they would get a bit of a show. But honestly, her brain was too foggy with desire to really get a handle on that reality. She couldn’t care. Not for her modesty, not for anyone’s sensibilities. There was only this. Only him.
She lost all sense of propriety, all sense of loyalty, all sense of...everything when she was with him.
She became a new person. A different version of Elle.
She had to wonder what might have happened if she had taken the steps to close the distance between them nine years ago. If they would have forgotten about decency back then.
It didn’t matter. They were doing this now. She tried to shove aside the thoughts of everything else that had happened in the ensuing years. The wedge that had been driven into the family.
Her father, his mother and her, all on one side of the gulf, with him on the other.
She didn’t want to think about them. Not now. Didn’t want to think about the father she could never be good enough for. The father who had preferred her stepbrother to her.
Probably still did, in truth. Even though Apollo had taken a chunk out of David St. James’s empire, he probably privately celebrated his stepson’s ruthlessness.
Apollo might have betrayed them. But Apollo never acted like he wished she were someone else. Apollo never made her feel like she wasn’t good enough. He gloried in her body, in the attraction between them. It was more than she had ever had from...anyone.
The thought filled her with a sudden, intense swell of emotion. Whatever they had, whatever this was, it fed her soul in a way nothing else did. Because it was about her. It wasn’t about the business. It wasn’t about performing to his satisfaction. He cared about performing to hers. They were in this together. They wanted each other.
For once she wasn’t striving for approval. Wasn’t trying to live up to an expectation she simply never could.
Her father had seen Apollo as his hope. The son he never had. The heir she could never be.
Then he had trusted Apollo to bail him out, never speaking to her about anything. Never consulting her. He had always trusted Apollo above her.
And Apollo had betrayed him.
But that didn’t stand in the way of her and Apollo. He didn’t look at her and see the unfulfilled promises of someone else. He wanted her. In spite of everything.
It was balm for her soul.
He swept her into his arms, lifting her as though his arms were created to cradle her close. As though she was the perfect weight and size for him. As though this moment had been fated from the beginning.
He carried her up from the pool, striding right into the house, clearly just as unconcerned as she was about being seen. She had a feeling his staff was paid to look the other way when he was conducting affairs in his home. She shoved that thought to the side. She wasn’t going to think about other times, other women.
Right now, she was the only one. That would have to be enough.
He started up the stairs, and she put her hand on his cheek, tracing the fine lines on his face. Additions to his features, new and fascinating. She remembered his face so clearly as a teenage boy. Smooth, pretty. Full perfect lips, amusement in his dark eyes, a kind of irreverent quirk to his brow.
He was no longer smooth. Dark stubble covered his jaw, his chin. Deep grooves bracketed his mouth, marred his forehead. The face that had once been pretty was now more rugged, more distinguished. The laughter in his eyes was gone, replaced with a kind of intensity that burned her from the inside out.
The irreverence was still there, though. It was one of her favorite parts of him. That dry, sardonic humor that would make her laugh in the strangest moments. That would take her from anger to entertainment in only a few moments. That would see her kissing him instead of screaming at him thanks to one well-timed comment.
He was one of the few men who had ever stood up to her. Who had gone toe to toe with her and made her feel like she just might lose.
Not for the first time she wondered at the ground they had covered since then. Wondered about what had happened.
But she didn’t have time to turn it over anymore, because they had reached the top of the stairs, and only a second later, her bedroom.
He set her down, water dripping down her body, pooling down around her feet. “I’m going to get the carpet wet.”
“I can’t say I am very concerned about that.”
“Well, it’s your carpet.”
“Yes, it is,” he said, one side of his mouth curving upward.
He regarded her for a moment before taking a step toward her, tracing the line down the edge of her bikini top, the tip of his finger only barely delving beneath. “This is the stuff of my darkest fantasies.”
“A fluorescent bikini?”
He chuckled. “You. In this bikini. So much of that beautiful, pale skin on display. Your hair... It should look ridiculous with this color. Instead, you’re simply everything bright. I wanted you then. I consider this my reward for good behavior.” His smile turned wicked. “You know, I only wish I had known you were a virgin.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Had I known you were a virgin I would have relished my prize all the more. I was obsessed with having you first. With teaching you about pleasure.”
“You did,” she said. She had held the words back from him two weeks ago. Because she had not been ready to share that with him. Had not been ready to confess just how much he had meant to her. What it had meant that he was her first lover.
Or why he was.
But there was no use in protecting herself now. She didn’t want to.
“It was always you that I wanted,” she said. “That was why even though I said I hated you, even though I was so angry at you the first time I kissed you, it went as far as it did. Because it was always you for me, Apollo. No matter how many years have passed, no matter what ugly words were spoken between us, it was always you.”
* * *
Apollo knew he did not deserve the words that Elle had just spoken. He was using her. For these past two weeks he had been using her. To satisfy his need for her. Biding his time until he could get his revenge, filling the hours with the pleasures of her body knowing that in the end he would betray her.
There was nothing else to do. This thing between them could not last. And he could not deviate from his course of revenge against his stepfamily. Not now.
He
